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How I Met My iPhone

It took an entire morning camped out in front of my MacBook to book an appointment for the launch, half an hour waiting for customer service to pick-up my call, a couple of minutes half-screaming at the Filipino CS rep who had the nerve to tell me I was lucky I was even able to connect to the website (this while I was complaining about the fact that my appointment was not booked due to some error on their side), several dozen moments jumping up and down after getting my confirmation e-mail seconds after the aforementioned screaming match with the rep who incidentally told me I had none, fifteen minutes trying my luck at the online pre-order, and an entire day staring at the door waiting for the delivery man because the pre-order was successful.

I always knew I was getting an iPhone when I moved here, it was only a question of when. It's never prudent to get an Apple product nearing the end of its life cycle, so I waited for the launch of the new iPhone. Disappointing as the 4S was, it was still a better option than having to shell out an extra 9 dollars per month to get internet connectivity if I get a Blackberry or having to do extra work to get my Macbook to befriend an Android phone. While the latter shouldn't be so hard, I already spend the entire day trying to get electronic stuff to work, so outside of my job I prefer my electronics to work for me instead.

I've had an iPhone 3G for more than two years and an iPod Touch after that so I am no stranger to iOS and the goodies that the App Store brings, but it's my first time to use it with a virtually unlimited data plan (technically my usage is capped at 12Gb but that is nearly impossible to use up with normal usage), so I've been trying out a number of apps that I ignored previously because they didn't make sense if I didn't have connectivity on-the-go. And SingTel's 3G connection is pretty darned good.

Anyway, a couple of noteworthy apps I've been liking lately:

1. Pulse

It's an app that allows you to organize mobile content from various sources so you can see them at a glance. While it doesn't appear to be something you need once I started using it I found it hard to go back to viewing my favorite sites one by one using a conventional browser.

I just wish I could have more than 5 pages, and it would be amazing if I could add my favorite blogs to the mix (or maybe that's possible but I just haven't figured out how - drop me a line if you know how to).

Edit: While you can't have more than 5 pages, you can add any site with an RSS feed via the search feature so yay.

2. Soundhound

I don't know why I haven't heard of this before but it's the coolest app ever. Seriously. It listens to a song snippet via the iPhone's mic and identifies the song. Which doesn't seem like much on paper but it's really impressive once you try it out. It's the end of the era of hearing a song you like in some random place and having to remind yourself to google it later (and coming up with no hits because you don't remember enough lyrics to come up with a decent keyword search).

I played around with it using stuff from my iTunes library and it usually takes about 5 to 10 seconds for it to make an ID; sometimes it doesn't even wait for actual lyrics. And hey, if it can ID Donna Cruz and Imago and The Moffatts, it's good enough for me.

You can even try to sing or hum the song, and as off-key as I am the app was able to identify this just by a couple of he-ey's:

And the best part is, it's free! If you have an iPhone (or a droid) you must try it out. Like, now.

3. Siri

Ah, Siri.

That about sums up our relationship.

Random picture to end the post because I have just recently discovered the transformative power of false eyelashes (and also because I am vain):